Panama and Copa Airlines host Star Alliance meeting

Copa Airlines celebrates its second anniversary as a member of Star Alliance, the world’s leading global alliance of commercial airlines.

Star Alliance chose Copa Airlines’s Hub of the Americas as the site of its 2014 high-level meeting, held on April 8-10.

Representatives of 26 airlines from 26 countries around the world attended this important meeting.

Panama City, April 11, 2014

Star Alliance, the world’s leading global alliance of commercial airlines, held high-level working meetings in Panama City. This location was chosen as a sign of international recognition of the importance of Copa Airlines, the Star Alliance member airline that hosted the event, and also in recognition of Panama’s becoming a true Hub of the Americas. The Star Alliance network reaches worldwide, with 18,000 flights a day to 1,269 airports in 193 countries.

According to Pablo de la Guardia, Copa Airlines’s Senior Director of Government Relations and Strategic Alliances, the Star Alliance meeting in Panama will serve to encourage and further the effort that Copa Airlines has been making in recent years, to strengthen the position of Panama and the Hub of the Americas as the hemisphere’s main connection point and one of the world’s most important “hubs.”

“Copa Airlines’s business agreements and strategic alliances with the other Star Alliance airlines—which include some of the most important airlines in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas—make it easier and more attractive for increasing numbers of business travelers and tourists to choose to visit Panama, establish regional offices, and invest in the country,” Pablo de la Guardia said.

The Star Alliance meeting was led by the Alliance’s CEO, Mark Schwab, and by the vice presidents of the 26 Star Alliance member airlines. The member airlines offer numerous benefits to their passengers, including reciprocity among frequent flyer mileage programs and convenient connections to more destinations than any other alliance in the world.

"Holding this meeting in Panama gives us the opportunity to strengthen our commitment to the Americas. Star Alliance offers customers an extensive network that spans from Alaska to Argentina, even with the recent changes in the alliance’s general makeup. We offer more international connections to and from North America, and we have more airlines that serve Latin America’s largest aviation market—Brazil—than any other airline alliance. Our meeting here in Panama offered all of our member airlines the opportunity to gain a firsthand look at the market prospects that this region currently offers the aviation industry," Schwab said.